I used to be 10/48/3 and I am NOT saying that it is a bad spec. IN Fact, if you do not have the gear, or a guild with shadow priest every night, I STRONGLY recommend you stay fire.

What I AM saying is that Arcane with a shadow priest( even without 2piece t5 ) has the potential to do more dee p s than deep fire.

MANY peoples main doubt for the spec was its mana cost and viability over the course of a long fight ( this was my main concern as well ) This couldn't be further from the truth. Even in full spellfire gear (spiritless), with some T5/T6 pieces, I am regenning 158 mana while casting with mage armor up.

I have not seen a significant mana issue on any fight in T6 so far. (And no my guild does not waste innervates on DPS)

For example Vashj, a AT LEAST 10 minute fight, where everyone has to go balls to the wall deeps.

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a8/draxon012/lolrofl.jpg

Tier 6 Examples + Gruul and Mag

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=tfqo6wmabsxem

Further Examples Night by Night

http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?guild=grwplccetswua

Sort raid by boss and you will see the ridiculous damage from this spec.
Keep in mind I don't even have the 2 piece T5 yet. Which will add another 10 - 15% straight DPS.

Some notes:

Mag :( Click duty sucks ( Note 78% DPS time )

Anetheron puts people to sleep, if you will note my DPS on his death compared to my DPS time you will see i was slept 20% of the fight, or I would have taken top spot.

Kaz'Rogal drains 3000mana every 30seconds, if you go oom you blow up killing yourself, melee and warlocks own here due to mana tap and not having a mana pool respectively.

Not to mention that Hyjal is pretty much an AOE festival, and arcane really shines here. I outdamaged everyone in the raid by over 1.5 million damage over the course of the night.

To the people all over this forum naysaying that this spec is not viable for end game raiding, It is my pleasure to inform you that you are straight up incorrect.

Thanks for reading :)

Haven't tried it out myself. But looking at the T5 set bonus. I am forced to admit that if I ever got 2 pieces of T5, I would respec arcane as well. 20% increased in arcane blast damage is just too much.

Its one of the workhorse spells of an arcane mage. That set bonus is like a set bonus that says +20% dmg to fireballs or frostbolts. Its totally crazy.

---

Q u o t e:
I've tried more talent builds than I care to count, and I have to say that arcane can be a great build. There's a few excellent talents in there that really come in handy. The extra int, armor, and improved counterspell are quite nice to have. Not to menchion that I've not yet been able to match my spell crit chance on any other build. But ultimately, I found it made me less effective at crowd control. And I simply can't trade my ice barrier for the mana shield alone. But maybe I'm not the best player around, this is my first toon ever.

---

Arcane Fortitude is a complete waste of a point.

If I want more armor, I put up Ice Armor instead of Molten Armor.

How many arcane blast "debuffs" should you have before you let it wear off?

Im deep fire right now, and it really bores me. I always liked arcane and maybe I could do well with that. I just need to learn a few things.

I took the plunge and respecced to deep arcane yesterday. Still need to get the hang of it. I wasn't using all the possible tricks that arcane offers. But happy to say that I am keeping up with the locks now and I am not having any major mana problems surprisingly.

Just want to say thanks to all the deep arcane Trailbrazers.


BTW, any tips from arcane raiding mages on how to make the best use of our tricks like clearcast, POM, and AP?

I find that because I use quartz, its usually too late to interrupt spells to clearcast an AM. And its rather distracting to try and keep track of it. (I am not even sure if quartz has any options that will scream out at me when clearcast procs).

And how about POM and AP? I find AP rather iffy to use in raids. Its uses up a lot of mana. And I am still getting used to managing my mana as arcane.

What kind of spell sequence do you guys use when you activate AP?

Awesome thanx for the insight

Im a T4 mage with a few purples from kara and im NOT a tailor.

I spec'd arcane about a week ago and love it. But im still getting used to it. Watching the debuffs, cooldowns, timing teh clearcasting and sticking to a fixed rotation ONTOP of teh actuall boss fight is hard.
Heres my stats for the last Kara i was in. http://www.lossendil.com/wws/?report=3dw6nfsbyviqe

i find that no matter how much i try my DPS time seems to be low ??? I always thought that because at the end of the arcane missles your out of the 5 sec rule it counts as non-dps time. Then i looked at your stat report and yours is way up there - mines like 75-80% I always start first and am rarley ever not casting something - any ideas ?

I too use quartz. Love the mod.

Im interested in the rotation you use. Esp for longer fights. My standard one is

ABx2, missles, scorch, ABx2... (typical fight)
ABx3, missles, FireBlast, ABx3 (for shorter fights)
Abx2, scorchx4, ABx2 (for longer fights)

Always AM on clearcasting and AM + AP on clearcasting too ;P when its up.

I gotta agree with you on the mana issue. The hardest thing with this build is not going OOM, mana management. I use molten armour for teh extra crit if i have a shad priest / pally in raid. If its a longer fight or i dont have any of those classes i use mage armour - seems to work fine. mana gem / pot rotation - evocate - people should be fine. Just be prepared to go through alot of pots

You'll learn the encounters with practice. be conservative at first then if u have a lot of mana at the end u can use more the next time i usually try to time my evocation for it to be up by the time a mob gets to 30% then its AB spam festival ..

ur definately gonna need a suscription to ur mana pot dealer .. i chug 20 of those per night .. alongside all my mana gems every fight .. it is hard and about timing ..

heres an exemple of spell rotations from the most mana efficient to the least efficient mana wise but very very high in DPS

AM + fireblast

AM ab ab am ab fireblast

ab ab ab am am

ab ab ab ab ab forever hehe

those work nicely

Interesting to read how other people play the Arcane tree.. as i've spent a lot of time in frost for pvp and fire for raiding arcane has been a eye opener for me. I guess because its new and all as was the other trees when i first spec'd them.

My current rotation is:

ABx3 > AM > Fireblast...

however having read your post Putano im going to rethink how im doing it... scorch seems to still allow me to end up my rotation and still cast with the 3 x debuff and when it ends i get the cheep cost to cast. and is 200mana less...

as i have a high latency its hard for me to make use of my clearcasting as i use quartz and stopcasting macros i have already started casting my next spell before it proc's... i could stop casting but that in turn could work against my favor... it is food for thought tho

edit:

is it only me or is the main bonus for this tree to start casting arcane blast as you have the debuff ( so you get the reduced casting time ) and it ends after the debuff comes off you so you recieve the lower casting cost, ie. have your cake and eat it too...

because some of the rotations i've seen dont seem to utitalize this "perk"

in a raid .. scorch is a waste .. and less damage than just spamming AM .. its gonna be 700 .. over 5 sec ur probably gonna get 100-300 mana from ur shadow priest ..

is throwing AB / scorch in there not intended to fill in the time that is needed for the AB Debuff to wear off so your not wasteing your time just standing there not casting?

i cant see any sense in spamming scorch more than once... i can see sense in subbing fire blast with scorch and visa versa for the mana cost and damage done..

---

Q u o t e:
I took the plunge and respecced to deep arcane yesterday. Still need to get the hang of it. I wasn't using all the possible tricks that arcane offers. But happy to say that I am keeping up with the locks now and I am not having any major mana problems surprisingly.

Just want to say thanks to all the deep arcane Trailbrazers.


BTW, any tips from arcane raiding mages on how to make the best use of our tricks like clearcast, POM, and AP?

I find that because I use quartz, its usually too late to interrupt spells to clearcast an AM. And its rather distracting to try and keep track of it. (I am not even sure if quartz has any options that will scream out at me when clearcast procs).

And how about POM and AP? I find AP rather iffy to use in raids. Its uses up a lot of mana. And I am still getting used to managing my mana as arcane.

What kind of spell sequence do you guys use when you activate AP?

---

A mod called "PowerAuras" (I'm sure there are others) will let you set up a custom animation for any buff or debuff with a customizable image, placement, size, animation, etc. I saw it once in a warlock pvp video (he had a brown ring around his lock when Backlash procced) and fell in love with the mod.

yeah they're spamming scorch to kill the AB debuff .. but AM is better than scorch in raid

I avoid throwing any fire spells in a boss fight into my arcane rotation for the simple reason that I don't equip more than +6 hit. I'm capped for arcane and stick to arcane spells.

If I feel the need to squeeze in another spell to take up the debuff time, I'll cast another AM. In fact, more and more 3 AB 2 AM is becoming my standard rotation. Not having mana problems with it, either, at least so long as I run mage armor and have a shadow priest in the group. And on mobile fights I get a fair bit of downtime anyways just from dancing around.

i only use scorch for the LONG fights

usually ABx2 AM works best - but i found using quartz i have about 3sec of AB debuf left so i can throw in a quick FB or scorch

Sure ABx2 AMx2 is nice but the whole idea is to get the AB debuff without the mana cost.

Depending on clearcasting / other procs i sometimes cast Am x2 or even X3. Once teh AB debuff is gone you can do anything - ie start again - POM + AB is always good ;P

AMx2 (get crusade card stack up fast ;P)
clearcasting
AP+AM
Am (while AP up)
POM + AB - fire is usually alot of threat esp at the start of a fight
AB

Point is theres heaps of ways to cast - its situational and fight dependant - alot of fun though


edit: spelling ;P

Since I do not have access to Spellfire, I took a different route gear-wise then most mages.

I'm sort built for looong AB spams, so my base rotation is ABx5 then AM. Anytime I'm taken out of my rotation long enough for AM to let the debuff wear off before I am ready, then I just skip the AM that round. I'm typically grouped with a BeastMaster hunter and a shadowpriest. My high Int and good spirit allow AB to be about 80% of my damage. TLC is usually around 4-6% of my damage and AM makes up the rest.

Having 2 T5, it makes it very hard to cast anything but AB. For fight longer then 8 minutes, I unload very early .. invis and then evocate, hoping to get a second evocation before the fight is finished. My Int in a raid is about 936 now, putting me just over 16k mana. My Spelldamage and crit certainly do lack, but the speed of arcane blast bursts and the frequency that I can do them, combined with 2 T5 seems to make up for that lack very well.

Just a different perspective for those unable to get spellfire.

I can say that arcane is way more fun, and easier to play, but I'll have to say deep fire is still way better dps.

Currently, all my gear is gone and I can't raid, but when it gets restored, I'll record my next mag kill or astromancer kill, and show you guys the dps a deep fire mage should be doing.

For mag I did 650k at 1230 dps
As for astromancer, I did something like 800k at 1450 dps because of AoE.

If you have t5 helm/pants+spellfire, no doubt that AB spamming will just rock someones head off.